Coming, Going, Barking

More openings and closings — and Ian's a cat person, dammit!

Some unfinished business concerning last week's review of Three Monkeys ("Curious Gorge," February 21) and the previous week's review of the Original Pancake House ("Griddle Lock," February 14).

In the Three Monkeys review, I wrote:

The dog-show judge is selecting the best of the herding group. I'm not really a dog person. I prefer cats, wary and mysterious.... Still, this round I dig: good, solid working dogs, some big, some small, at least one that looks like Cousin Itt.

I've since learned that I shouldn't call herding dogs "working dogs," not because it sounds like they are prostitute dogs, but because "working dogs" is, in fact, a dog-show category for dogs who do work other than herding. Like I said, I'm a cat person.

In the Original Pancake House review, I said the Chesterfield location was the chain's first in Missouri. A reader wrote that he recalled an Original Pancake House at the Four Seasons Shopping Center in Chesterfield in the early 1980s. This predates my time in St. Louis by about two decades. Anybody else remember this?

SKYBOX IS NOW OPEN at 800 North Third Street — the old Planet Hollywood space on Laclede's Landing. The sports bar and grill is the joint project of a few locals you may know: Nelly, Marshall Faulk, new Chicago Bull Larry Hughes and Portland Trail Blazer Darius Miles.

The menu features the usual suspects with a Southern soul-food twist: In addition to nachos, wings and burgers, you can order shrimp and grits, freshly baked cornbread or a slab of ribs with Nelly's own barbecue sauce. (No Pimp Juice jokes, please.)

MAPLEWOOD IS SAYING goodbye to two establishments. Minions Café (7322 Manchester Road) closed on February 16. The café's catering arm, Seasonings Caterering, remains in operation. Meanwhile, on the same block, the Grateful Inn (7336 Manchester Road) will close after Saturday, March 1.

ARE YOU OPENING a new restaurant? Know of a place that has closed? Drop me a line at the e-mail address below. And if you haven't visited Gut Check (http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/gutcheck) lately, be sure to drop by and read my colleague Keegan Hamilton's fascinating look at Lenten food at the Cherokee Street restaurant La Tortuga.